For two years I will be preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and serving the people in the area of the Salt Lake City East Mission! My mother has volunteered to post my letters and pictures on this blog so you can follow me. I have been preparing for my mission for 18 years by exercising faith and building a testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ and His amazing Gospel. Please email or write me if you have any questions or just want to talk!

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Loving the Mission

Dear Family,

I love you! Thanks for killing my cactus!! This week has been so great. We broke our record of two dinners in one night. Saturday we ate THREE DINNERS. Wow I was wayyyy full! We ate at the Morrels first. They had signed up for that night. Then we taught a lesson and brought one of the youth from the ward along. He is 17, super excited about missionary work and loves to come out with us! (PRESTON: Start going out with the missionaries now it will help you SOOOOO much) After the lesson we took him to the Justices house because they were having a two family dinner. (Like us and the Johnstones) and the grandma there was like "eat" "go get some food" " there is still steak left and we need it all gone" Holy cow right! So we ate some steak and Spanish rice and then she made us eat ice cream. THEN we had a few more lessons and at the end of the night we had an hour left and so we visited a recent convert guy named James (he is super cool from Louisiana and is 65 but looks 40. I'll take a picture with him soon) and he had just made a crazy Cajun roast that was really hot and he insisted that we have some. It was wayyy good and super hot. It made me start hiccuping. He is an amazing cook and he used to cook for the army and his huge family and stuff. But yeah, needless to say, I rolled into the apartment that night stuffed to the brim and my mouth was on fire. It was super great.

This week we have had some cool miracles. The girl that I said reminded me of Brooke, we have been teaching her, and her Mom and Dad have been sitting in the lesson and they are super awesome. She is setting such an amazing example for her whole family and they are starting to be more and more involved in the lessons. Another one of our investigators is having a massive change of heart and is turning his life around. It is so amazing to see. The power of the Atonement is universal. It reaches EVERYONE no matter what. We can change and leave our mistakes behind because of Him, all we have to do is have hope. As soon as we have hope, we start to have faith, and as we act on that faith and it grows within us, we can be free forever from the chains of sin through the power of Christ's infinite atonement. One of our investigators concerns was that he didn't want to leave his past behind because he had learned so much from all of his experiences. I shared with him the story of Enos where he says:

Book of Mormon Enos 1:5-6

5 And there came a voice unto me, saying: Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed.

6 And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away.

His guilt was swept away, not his knowledge. He found a lot of comfort in that and he really gets it. I am so exited for him to be baptized on the 26th!

I love you guys so much. Keep writing me. I love it so much. I am so happy and so excited to be here in Green River, Wyoming. I am so grateful to be a tool in the hand of God and I can see Him shaping me into the missionary He wants me to be.